Let's face it, at times living with a food intolerance like fructose malabsorption leaves you with the choice of either laughing or crying. That's one reason why I really love the Katering Show, a youtube cooking show and comedy hosted by Kate McLennan (a foodie) and Kate McCartney a food intolerant. I have not laughed so much since I first saw Posh Nosh. I particularly love the Thermomix episode. If you have fructose malabsorption, you have to check it out.﻿

I dropped into Safe House Gluten Free Cafe at 217 Commercial Road, South Yarra today. Safe House Gluten Free Cafe is a 100% gluten free environment, which makes it safe for coeliacs as there is no risk of cross-contamination. It also looks great for people like myself with fructose malabsorption or other fodmap intolerances, as they have plenty of fructose friendly and dairy free options, as well as options for vegans. I was in a hurry, so I just grabbed a coffee (which was very good), and a fructose friendly chocolate muffin, which was great. Unlike a lot of gluten free and fructose friendly cakes and muffins I've had at cafes, this muffin was not too dry or powdery, and tasted delicious. I am definitely planning on coming back here and doing a full review. If you're in South Yarra or Prahran, definitely check them out.

I love curries, and used to go out to local Indian, Malaysian and Thai restaurants just to get my curry fix. However, so many curry based dishes are high fodmap due to the use of ingredients such as onion, shallots or garlic. Occasionally I’ll risk it, but I often have my fructose malabsorption triggered, and end up feeling getting really sick. One of my favourite Indian curries is Rogan Josh. Rogan Josh is a Kashmiri curry, and there are many variations on this traditional dish, with some being high fodmap and some being very low fodmap. Your luck may vary considerably depending on how your local restaurant does the dish. For instance, this version of Rogan Josh uses 1kg of onion! (and is obviously extremely high fodmap) - however, theserecipes use no onion. I have also seen recipes that add tomato, yoghurt or cream.

I’ve borrowed from all of these recipes, to make a variant that is low fodmap, gluten free and lactose and casein free, with ingredients I was able to find relatively easily (this may vary depending on what your local stores offer when it comes to Indian spices). I did not have any Rajantot (which is used in several of the recipes I found online), so I did include a small amount of tomato. This can be changed if you have problems tolerating even a small amount of fresh tomato.

There's a good article on travel company G-Adventures' blog, on Gluten-free snacks in Northern India. It can be challenging finding safe foods if you have food intolerances in other countries, as you may not be familiar with dishes local to the places your travelling, and there may also be language barriers to overcome. This is a good list of chaat food for people with coeliac disease, or who otherwise need to avoid gluten or wheat. These dishes aren't necessarily low fodmap, though, as they contain onion and other fodmaps. ﻿

One of things I suggest trying is not only researching what food options may be available for you at your destination, but also see if you can try versions of potentially safe dishes before you go, in order to assess your tolerances. This particularly worth doing if you're on a low fodmap diet, as individual trigger foods can vary quite a bit. For instance, I have an issue with fructans due to having fructose malabsorption, so chickpea based flour is not a good option to me. This means that some of the snacks listed in the G-Adventures blog wouldn't be okay for me to have as they are still high in fructans.

I'm intending on blogging more once I've done some additional research on low fodmap foods while travelling in India, as there are still good options. I really want to visit India some time in the next few years, it looks like such an amazing country with a fascinating history and culture.

Feel free to comment or get in touch with any of your own experiences of travelling with food intolerances such as fodmap intolerances, or with coeliac disease.

I love risotto, it's one of my comfort food dishes. However one of the problems with many risotto recipes is making it fructose friendly and low fodmap, as most recipes contain onion, and especially stock containing onion. This is particularly an issue when dining out at a restaurant, as it's easy to overlook the onion in the stock, even when the rest of the ingredients are low fodmap.

At home, it's easier to make risotto from scratch, so then you can ensure all the ingredients are safe, but unless you've got some home made stock handy, or have managed to find a safe, low fodmap stock (here in Australia there are some stocks that are onion free and low fodmap, but ingredients in store bought stock can change, so be cautious when using store bought stock), it can be a challenge to make a risotto that still has some real flavour. What I do in this situation is make some "fake" stock with salt and pepper dissolved in boiling water, along with adding some fresh herbs and chilli. I'm interested to get some feedback from anyone who tries this recipe. It works for me, but tastes vary. Let me know what you think.

This recipe is gluten free, low fodmap and fructose friendly, with lactose and casein free options.

Author

I love to travel, but have fructose malabsorption, which can make travelling, or even eating out, literally a pain. I'll be collecting tips & information for travellers with food intolerances, as well as posting reviews and recipes.